KMT commission decides Ma only eligible candidate

Staff writer, with CNA

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will be the sole candidate in next month’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship election after his only competitor was disqualified for failing to collect enough endorsements.

Hsieh Kun-hung (謝坤宏), a KMT Central Standing Committee member, failed to pass screening by the party’s election review commission yesterday, which decided that only 6,610 of the 20,952 signatures he collected were valid.

Ma delivered 82,786 signatures to the commission, 59,925 of which were deemed valid.

The KMT said that about 380,000 members are eligible to vote in the election, and would-be candidates must obtain the endorsement of 3 percent, or about 12,000, of the eligible voters.

Hopefuls must also be approved by the party’s supervisory committee.

The election will be held during the KMT’s party congress, which is scheduled for July 20.

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